GEA opens world’s largest fermentation plant for cultures
The AIR17 project—a collaboration between GEA and long-term customer Chr. Hansen—was completed with the inauguration of the world’s largest fermentation plant for bacterial cultures at the customer’s site in Copenhagen, Denmark, on Nov. 23, 2017.
The AIR17 project—a collaboration between GEA and long-term customer Chr. Hansen—was completed with the inauguration of the world’s largest fermentation plant for bacterial cultures at the customer’s site in Copenhagen, Denmark, on Nov. 23, 2017. The production site has four production lines: two lines with 45 cubic meter fermentors each and two lines with 100 cubic meter fermentors each.
Two criteria for success were crucial to Chr. Hansen when choosing its supplier and partner on this project—the ability to meet a very high level of hygienic requirements and provide an effective and high level of automation during production. “The hygienic requirements when producing bacterial cultures are much stricter than for other types of food production,” said Torsten Steenholt, executive vice president of global operations at Chr. Hansen. “We needed a supplier that could provide this in their application solution for cultures, along with the automated functions, and GEA accomplished this task to our great satisfaction. Furthermore, the high level of hygiene and the automated production process have enabled significant cost savings.”
The recently completed project AIR17, which was launched in September 2015 is part of a 10-year master plan and has involved an ongoing expansion of Chr. Hansen’s fermentation plant. GEA has been integrated in this project from the very beginning—starting with AIR7, which was also a success.